• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.44 no.5
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• pp.173-178
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• 2011

Separator of stack in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is high cost and heavy. If we make it low cost and lighter, it will have a great ripple. In this study, low carbon steel is used as base metal of separator because the cost of low carbon steel is very cheaper commercial metal material than stainless steels, which is widely used as separator. Low carbon steel has not a good corrosion resistance. In order to improve the corrosion resistance and electrolytic conductivity, low carbon steel needs to be surface treated. We made Chromium electroplated layer of $5{\mu}m$, $10{\mu}m$ thickness on the surface of low carbon steel and it was nitrided for 2 hours at $1000^{\circ}C$ in a furnace with 100 torr nitrogen gas pressure. Cross-sectional and surface microstructures of surface treated low carbon steel are investigated using SEM. And crystal structures are investigated by XRD. Interfacial contact resistance and corrosion tests were considered to simulate the internal operating conditions of PEMFC stack. The corrosion test was performed in 0.1 N $H_2SO_4$ + 2 ppm $F^-$ solution at $80^{\circ}C$. Throughout this research, we try to know that low carbon steel can be replaced stainless steel in separator of PEMFC.

• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
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• v.68
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• pp.173-179
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• 2018

Electrochemical characterization was conducted on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-ceramic composite (PVA-CC) separators for supercapacitor applications. The PVA-CC separators were fabricated by mixing various ceramic particles including aluminum oxide ($Al_2O_3$), silicon dioxide ($SiO_2$), and titanium dioxide ($TiO_2$) into a PVA aqueous solution. These ceramic particles help to create amorphous regions in the crystalline structure of the polymer matrix to increase the ionic conductivity of PVA. Supercapacitors were assembled using PVA-CC separators with symmetric activated carbon electrodes and electrochemical characterization showed enhanced specific capacitance, rate capability, cycle life, and ionic conductivity. Supercapacitors using the $PVA-TiO_2$ composite separator showed particularly good electrochemical performance with a 14.4% specific capacitance increase over supercapacitors using the bare PVA separator after 1000 cycles. With regards to safety, PVA becomes plasticized when immersed in 6 M KOH aqueous solution, thus there was no appreciable loss in tear resistance when the ceramic particles were added to PVA. Thus, the enhanced electrochemical properties can be attained without reduction in safety making the addition of ceramic nanoparticles to PVA separators a cost-effective strategy for increasing the ionic conductivity of separator materials for supercapacitor applications.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.57-63
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• 2022

The current study performed formability analysis of a heat exchanger separator for an electric vehicle to apply a high-strength aluminum sheet based on parametric analysis. Mechanical properties for sheet metal forming simulation were evaluated by tensile test, bulge test, and Nakajima test. Two-stage crash forming was established by considering the mass production process using conventional low-strength aluminum sheets. In this study, FEM for the two-stage forming process was conducted to optimize the corner radius and height for improving the formability. In addition, the possibility of a one-stage forming process application was confirmed through FEM. The prototype of the sample was manufactured as FEM results to validate the parametric analysis. Finally, this result can provide a one-stage forming process design method using the high-strength aluminum sheet for weight reduction of a heat exchanger separator for an electric vehicle.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.7-12
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• 2014

There is increasing demand on the reducing the weight and the volume of the major components in lithium secondary battery to improve energy density. Separator not only provides pathway for lithium ion movement but also prevents direct contact between anode and cathode. Herein we fabricated polyethylene separator by varying biaxial stretching ratio to obtain membrane thickness of 16, 12, and $9{\mu}m$. Mechanical and thermal properties of the separator with different thickness were investigated. Also rate capability and charge-discharge cycle property up to 500 cycles were studied using coin type full-cell with $LiCoO_2$ and graphite as a cathode and an anode, respectively. All the cells using separator with different thickness demonstrated excellent capacity retention after 500cycles (around 80%). Considering the rate capability, cell using separator with thickness of $9{\mu}m$ showed best performance. Interestingly, separator thickness of $9{\mu}m$ was more resistant to heat contraction compared to that of $16{\mu}m$ separator.

• Advanced Composite Materials
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.235-246
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• 2008

This paper is concerned with geotextiles bonded chemically with geogrid to form a geocomposite. Geotextiles, thermally bonded and non-woven, play an important role as a separator. Also, this study investigates the resistance to the application environment of geotextile composites. Here, numerous tests have been performed and it was revealed from experimental results that thermally bonded geotextile in geosynthetic composites showed superior characteristics to that manufactured from needle punched non-woven method in terms of tensile strength, tensile strain and high separation performance. It was noted from experiments that the geotextile prepared for separation purpose and manufactured in a thermal bonding method showed relatively low permittivity so that it could be used as a smooth separator. In addition, PVA geotextile/HDPE geomembrane composites were designed and manufactured to investigate the waste landfill related properties. Numerous experiments have been performed and experimental results were summarized to evaluate practical applicability of PVA geotextile/HDPE geomembrane composites. Among the properties of proposed geomembrane composites, evaluation has been focused on the investigation of mechanical properties, AOS (apparent opening size), permittivity and ultraviolet stability.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.553-557
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• 2014

Sulfonated polypropylene (S-PP) is prepared by sulfuric acid-acetone aldol condensation reaction of polypropylene (PP) separator to yield hydrophilic separator surface with a moderate amount of $-SO_3H$ groups. Activated carbon supercapacitor is also fabricated adopting the S-PP separator coated with potassium polyacrylate (PAAK) hydrogel polymer electrolyte. As a result, the hydrophilic surface of S-PP separator involves better physical and electrochemical properties such as decrease in contact angle, improvements of wettability, electrolyte uptake, and ionic conductivity to give higher specific capacitance and long cycle-life.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.339-345
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• 2008

The heat exchanger tube in nuclear power plants is mainly fabricated from nonferromagnetic material such as a copper, titanium, and inconel alloy, but the moisture separator & reheater tube in the turbine system is fabricated from ferromagnetic material such as a carbon steel or ferrite stainless steel which has a good mechanical properties in harsh environments of high pressure and temperature. Especially, the moisture separator & reheater tubes, which use steam as a heat transfer media, typically employ a tubing with integral fins to furnish higher heat transfer rates. The ferromagnetic tube typically shows superior properties in high pressure and temperature environments than a nonferromagnetic material, but can make a trouble during the normal operation of power plants because the ferrous tube has service-induced damage forms including a steam cutting, erosion, mechanical wear, stress corrosion cracking, etc. Therefore, nondestructive examination is periodically performed to evaluate the tube integrity. Now, the remote field testing(RFT) technique is one of the solution for examination of ferromagnetic tube because the conventional eddy current technique typically can not be applied to ferromagnetic tube such as a ferrite stainless steel due to the high electrical permeability of ferrous tube. In this study, we have designed RFT probes, calibration standards, artificial flaw specimen, and probe pusher-puller necessary for field application, and have successfully carry out RFT examination of the moisture separator & reheater tube of nuclear power plants.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.228-241
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• 2020

Separators, which produces physical layer between a cathode and anode, are getting enormous attention as the quality of the separator determines the performance of lithium ion batteries (LIBs). Porous membranes based on polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) are generally utilized as the separator of LIBs because of their high electrochemical stability and suitable mechanical strength. However, low thermal resistance and wettability of PE and PP membranes limited the potential of LIBs. Operating at the temperature exceeding the melting point of membranes, the separators change their structures which lead to short circuit of LIBs. Low wettability of the separators corresponds to low ionic conductivity which increases the cell resistance. To overcome these weaknesses of PE and PP separators, different types of separator were prepared by co-electrospinning, applying coating layer, forming core shell around membrane, and papermaking method. The synthesized separator greatly enhanced the heat resistance and wettability of separator and mechanical properties like flexibility and tensile strength. In this review different type of polymer membrane used as separator in lithium ion battery are discussed.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.4
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• pp.467-472
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• 2017

Alkaline electrolytes consisting of 6 M KOH and polymer (PEO, PVA, and PAAK) are coated on PAN nonwoven fabrics as a separator, and the electrochemical properties of the activated carbon supercapacitor adopting them are investigated in terms of redox behavior, specific capacitance, and interfacial impedance. Although the interaction between polymer and KOH are comparatively inactive in PEO and PVA, PAAK (3 wt.%)-KOH forms a hydrogel phase by active interactions between $COO^-K^+$ in side-chain of PAAK and $K^+OH^-$ from alkaline electrolyte solution, improving ionic conduction of electrolytes and the electrochemical properties of the supercapacitor. As a result, the activated supercapacitor adopting the PAAK-KOH shows the superior specific capacitance of $46.8Fg^{-1}$ at $100mVs^{-1}$.

• Composites Research
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.46-51
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• 2017

Structural battery has been researched extensively to combine the functions of the battery and structure without gravimetric or volumetric increments compared to their individual components. The main idea is to employ carbon fabric as the reinforcement and electrode, glass fabric as the separator, and solid-state electrolyte which can transfer load. However, state-of-the-art solid-state electrolytes do not have sufficient load carrying functionality and exhibiting appropriate ion conductivity simultaneously. Therefore, in this research, a system which has both battery and load carrying capabilities using glass fabric separator and liquid electrolyte was devised and tested to investigate the potential and feasibility of this structural battery system and observe electric properties. It was observed that elongating separator decreased electrical behavior stability. A possible cause of this phenomenon was the elongated glass fabric separator inadequately preventing the penetration of small particles of the cathode material into the anode. This problem was verified additionally by using a commercial separator. The characteristic of the glass fabric and the interface between the electrode and glass fabric needed to be further studied for the realization of such a load carrying structural battery system.